and then there was a squid
by netgirly2k
Summary: The Doctor plays cricket, Nyssa and Tean go to the beach and then there's a squid.


"Rabbits!" exclaimed Tegan Jovanka with conviction, before moving on to swearwords which were perhaps more appropriate for when a huge squid had just launched itself out of the water and onto the beach where you were relaxing.

Nyssa, who'd never heard most of the words Tegan was using, but who got the gist, grabbed Tegan's hand and started running along the beach.

Behind them was the sound of alien squid munching on deckchairs.

* * *

The Doctor, of course, had not intended to bring them to the planet of the menacing squid aliens.

"Cricket!" he'd exclaimed, leading Tegan and Nyssa out of the TARDIS into what, to Tegan's untrained eye, looked suspiciously like a quarry.

"Cricket?" in a quarry, all Tegan needed to hear to make her day was that he was planning to play a match against the Cybermen.

"This," the Doctor explained, "is the the foremost cricketing planet in this sector, and this week it's playing host to the intergalactic ashes."

Tegan cast a sidelong look at Nyssa, she knew her friend had never seen the appeal of cricket. And although Tegan had enjoyed the odd match, the thought of spending a week with the Doctor on a cricketing holiday really did not bear thinking about.

"I thought that while I did that, you two could..." the Doctor dashed up the slope, scattering pebbles behind him. Tegan and Nyssa exchanged an exasperated look and picked their way after him. "...Enjoy a few days at the beach," the Doctor finished once they'd all reached the summit.

Nyssa gasped slightly, and Tegan said, "Wow, Doc."

Beneath them a beach stretched as far as the eye could see, with golden sand and a perfectly calm blue-green ocean. It looked like a postcard beach, without the tourists.

"Tegan," the Doctor admonished, "you didn't really think I'd take you on holiday to a quarry."

"Probably not on purpose," Tegan conceded, Nyssa smiled and the Doctor pretended not to have heard.

* * *

The Doctor whistled as he departed with a cricket bat over his shoulder.

"Peace and quiet at last!" Tegan exclaimed.

Nyssa chuckled, and Tegan asked, "What's so funny?"

"Nothing. Do you want to stay in the TARDIS for the moment, or shall we go to the beach?"

"The beach, as soon as we've packed."

"The beach is something you need to pack for?"

The next time Nyssa saw Tegan she was manhandling two deckchairs out of a broom cupboard. "Do you need any help?"

"No," came Tegan's muffled reply from the cupboard, "you should go and find something to wear."

Nyssa went to the library to find a book to read.

* * *

The TARDIS wardrobe beachwear section consisted almost entirely of red and white striped, woollen bathing costumes and the occasional pair of speedos, but Tegan managed to turn up a bikini.

"Ta da!" Tegan said, draping herself artfully in the doorway to the console room.

"You look nice," said Nyssa, gathering up her beach towel and a book on inorganic chemistry. Tegan tried not to be disappointed, she and Nyssa had shared a bedroom for ages and seen each other in various stages of undress; for a properly scandalised reaction you needed the Doctor.

* * *

Nyssa had rebuffed all of Tegan's efforts to coax her into a bathing costume, but she had changed into a short skirt and loose white top.

"Here," once they were settled on the beach Tegan offered Nyssa a bottle of suntan lotion.

"It's okay, I won't burn."

Tegan continued to hold out the bottle. "Well, don't complain to me when you're all red and peeling."

"No, really, the atmosphere of this planet filters out the suns harmful rays. I looked it up in the TARDIS database."

Tegan wished she didn't know that. "What's wrong?" Nyssa asked, seeing her friends change in mood.

"It's silly," Tegan said, picking up her magazine, "go back to your book."

"Tell me, please?"

"I just, after everything, the Mara and everything-" Nyssa squeezed Tegan's knee, knowing that she found talking about the Mara difficult. "I wanted a normal beach holiday, and forgetting to put suntan lotion on your nose and spending the rest of the week looking like you've got a cold is part of that."

Nyssa took the bottle, squeezed some lotion onto her hand and rubbed it on her leg. "I thought you didn't need it?" said Tegan. In response Nyssa reached over and smeared lotion onto Tegan's nose.

Tegan shrieked with laughter and caught Nyssa's wrists to stop her friend continuing her assault. "What else is part of a beach holiday?" Nyssa asked.

Tegan made a half hearted attempt to pull her sunglasses, which were propped up on her head, down over her eyes, "Falling asleep in the sun." Nyssa raised an eyebrow, Tegan sighed, "And building sandcastles."

* * *

A quick run to back to the TARDIS procured a bucket and spade and Tegan set about teaching Nyssa how to make sandcastles. Despite only having one small blue bucket of the sort that was sold in English seaside resorts, Nyssa had soon managed to construct a fairytale palace with at least five turrets and a courtyard. Tegan was laughing and working on the moat when, of course, the giant squid appeared.

* * *

"Typical!" Tegan snapped, "Typical bloody Doctor! Not only does he take us on holiday to planets where we might get attacked by giant squid, he takes us to the only planet where the carnivorous squid are just as happy on _land!"_

There was a worrying thump from outside the TARDIS, the third in five minutes, and the console room floor lurched slightly.

"At least it doesn't seem to be getting in," Tegan said, experiencing a moment of uncharacteristic optimism.

"I don't think it's trying to get in," Nyssa called through from the lab. "I think it's trying to eat the TARDIS."

Tegan automatically took a few steps towards the centre of the room, as though a few feet would save her from squidly digestive fluids.

"But don't worry," Nyssa came into the console room carrying what looked to Tegan like a home brewing kit her cousin had when they were teenagers. "It's a sonic boom device," she explained as soon as she saw Tegan's bemused expression, "hopefully it will get rid of the alien."

There was another thump, "How?"

"Er," Nyssa looked at Tegan awkwardly, "it will shout at it. Loudly."

"That's almost as good as one of the Doctor's plans," Tegan said, Nyssa didn't take it in quite the spirit it had been intended and looked pleased.

Nyssa turned on the sonic boom device. The noise it emitted managed to be both high pitched and deafening, Tegan held her hands over her ears to no effect.

"THIS MIGHT BE A LITTLE UNCOMFORTABLE," Nyssa shouted over the noise.

"OH, MIGHT IT?" Tegan bellowed back. The floor lurched out from underneath their feet as the squid, who wasn't enjoying the noise any more than Tegan, upended the TARDIS onto its side before retreating down the beach to feast on leftover deckchair.

The sonic boom device toppled off the console, smashed and was silent. Tegan landed on the floor (recently a wall) with Nyssa on top of her, the pair of them a tangle of limbs. She looked over Nyssa's shoulder at the monitor (now on the ceiling) and saw the squid vanishing in the distance.

"It worked!" Tegan hugged Nyssa, easy enough as they were still wrapped around each other. "Who needs the Doctor when I've got you?"

She placed her hand on the back of Nyssa's neck, pulled her down and kissed her. Nyssa made a surprised sound, a kind of squeak, then braced her arms against the floor-nee-wall and kissed Tegan back.

It was nice, very nice. It almost made up for the squid.

"Hmm," the Doctor cleared his throat from the doorway. Managing with that one sound to ask why the TARDIS was on its side, and politely not commenting on the fact that Nyssa and Tegan had just been caught in a passionate clinch on the console room floor, or the fact that Tegan was still wearing a bikini.

"Er," said Tegan, "there was a giant squid.


End file.
